Wednesday, November 29, 2017

I have just published a book on the 1992 presidential election, entitled "1992: A Political Fantasy." It is a "fantasy" of how and why George H. W. Bush deliberately lost that election to Bill Clinton. It is listed on Amazon, the author being me, P. Schultz, and the title as given above. It is available in paperback for $12.99 and on Kindle for $4.99. At those prices, you can't go wrong.

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Below you
will find a link to an article published in the Washington Post on why “Trump
conservatives” are dissatisfied, allegedly, with our colleges and universities.
I posted this link on Facebook with the comment:

“So glad I quit "higher
education" when I did. Think about it: Now someone who is a "trained
marksman" and can shoot the head off a rattlesnake is considered worth
listening to on how to politicize even further than they already are politicized
our colleges and universities. And trust me: There is nothing radical or even
much that is unconventional going on in those institutions. Most professors
seek above all else tenure and success and are as a result, as the smartest
students know, just boring mouthpieces who never stray too far from
"conventional wisdom." Besides, the BOBs, the Basic Old Bureaucrats,
have the real power and these guys are as asinine - read "mainstream' - as
any Trumpian conservative or Obama liberal would wish them to be.”

My comment
was met with this response from one of my Facebook friends, who is by the way
not a Trump supporter in any way, shape, or form:

RS: “Not sure I
agree. Much movement is occurring in non traditional education. I had a long
discussion with our kids who are both in education and way smarter than I am
and they explained about so many innovations in the pipeline. So, take heart, Pete Schultz,
the world of education is not all gloom and doom.”

And this comment elicited the
following from yours truly:

“But, of course, it
is not "all gloom and doom" in education, or anywhere else, even in
the Trump administration. This is the kind of assertion that is impossible and
useless to argue with because it is so, well, meaningless or even inane. And I
rest my case if your "kids" are defending "innovations in the
pipeline." This is BOB, Basic Old Bureaucrat talk, which is generally
meaningless, inane lingo having nothing to do with "education." It
helps explain how we as a people have come to think that standardized testing
is anything other than the means of destroying genuine education and producing
more "bricks in the wall" who can work for corporations without
realizing how meaningless their lives actually are. And this stuff is dressed
up as "No Child Left Behind" ala' Bush, Jr. or "Race to the
Top," ala' Obama. But then, again, you can put a dress and earrings on a
pig but it is still a pig. Again, so glad I quit.”

The exchange, illustrates among
other things, why people like Trump are successful. Here is someone who, to be
direct, knows little or nothing about “the education world” and the battles
being fought there but, for the sake of “innovations in the pipe line,” ends up
allying himself with those like the green beret marksman who was used as the
basis of the Post article and “analysis.” Oh yes!

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

“Sometimes the light's all shining on me. Other times I can
barely see. Lately it’s occurred to me: What a long strange trip it’s
been.”The Grateful Dead

I have been
reading this book, The Embers of War,
about Vietnam in the 1940’s and 1950’s, when the US was just getting involved
there, as we say. And all of a sudden I was “blinded by the light.” For the US,
it was never really about Vietnam. Rather, it was about the United States and
preserving the status quo here, preserving the regime that was being
established, that had been established at least since the end of World War II.

How can you
preserve a political order best? It’s rather simple. By dying for it and/or
killing for it. And that’s what Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon
used Vietnam for, for dying and killing American soldiers – and others – in
order to fortify, to preserve, and even to extend the national security state
that had been created after World War II.

That’s why
we never seem to learn from “our mistakes” in Vietnam: Because our actions weren't mistakes and the same strategy is being used today, dying and killing in order
to perpetuate our flawed, our unrepresentative, our oligarchic political order."Winning" in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere isn't important. What's important is the dying and the killing because that blood offering is that which renders our establishment secure.